A Look Inside the Aleppo Kitchen Where You are Feeding Thousands

Matt Willingham

At this point, there are few people on earth who don’t know there’s a crisis in Syria.

Swipe your screen for a front row seat to years of Syrian families running, wailing, suffering. Then, when it surely couldn’t get worse, the crisis reached a horrible apex: hundreds of thousands fled a burning Aleppo, and the world seemed to wake up—if just for a few minutes—to the fact that “their” crisis “over there” is somehow ours, too.

Made-up borders on a map faded just a little. We saw that “those people” are our people, and we asked you to do something about it.

Many chose to look away or move on. We don’t fault them for it; this is painful stuff, and people can only take so much. But you were different.

You locked eyes and refused to look away.

Today, we are forever grateful that you saw those Syrians, and you just to respond to the horrific images on your screen—but now have you seen these?

These joy-seething, powerhouse Syrian women and men who don’t have time to debate politics on Facebook—they’re too busy filling bellies and sustaining thousands!

When families in Aleppo ran for their lives, they didn’t have time to pack a lunch. When bombs are falling, you don’t stop to raid the fridge or whip up a sandwich—you run.

Some might say, “I just can’t imagine what those people go through, running for their lives.”

That may be true, but I’m more inclined to believe they just don’t want to imagine it. Every parent knows how it feels to NOT be able to care for their children. Parents the world over know that guilt pang. Now just imagine feeling it for days and days on end as you watch your child wither away.

Then, after walking for days, often carrying your children for hours at a time—imagine the utter joy and relief at being served fresh, hot food!

Since December, you’ve served more than 790,000 hot meals—each one large enough to feed an entire family.

You’ve provided food and warmth—in the form of refugee-made sleeping bags—to displaced and vulnerable families in and around Aleppo.

You are making it possible for mothers and fathers to feed their children in the middle of so much fighting. This hot meal kitchen is run by refugees, serving refugees, and it is situated right smack dab in the middle of the conflict. Just a short drive in any direction puts you on a front line: ISIS to the west, Turkish-backed rebels to the northwest, Kurdish militias to the northeast, a slough of rebels—including Al Qaeda—to the east, and government forces all to the south.

When we ask families where they’re from and which fight they’re fleeing, they’re from all over. In one of the most divisive, polarizing conflicts in modern history, you are serving all, without discrimination.

Right now, just outside Aleppo, men and women are chopping vegetables and pouring huge bags of beans into pots. They are doing this because you chose to lean in rather than look away.

You’re believing better for Syria, and it’s making a difference for thousands!

Continue to lean in toward the people of Aleppo and Syria. Give today.